01/27/18

I finally upgraded my Lightwave to the 2018 version (after skipping the 2015 upgrade) earlier this month and a LOT is different. This render is a texturing exercise, inspired by re-rendering the original Organelle from 2002 for VR. The geometry here was modeled using The Plant Factory rather than Xfrog though. I still have a lot to learn but I thought I would share my progress...

01/19/18

It's been a while since I attempted an underwater render so I felt the time was ripe to dive back in. This time I wanted to use Plant Factory to create my undersea flora and fauna. I wasn't trying to model any real life organisms here, but rather create something fanciful and colorful.

I'm not 100% happy with how everything turned out (after MANY days of rendering at 8K on Bucephalus) but I do think it looks nice enough to share while I consider revisions. Let me know what you think!

01/06/18

My first render of 2018 was built using trees that evolved from both "The Standing Stones" and "Animus". It also contains plants that foreshadows my next render. I guess it has a foot in the past and a foot in the future. Truly a passageway :-)

12/30/17

If you've enjoyed my 360 Panoramas you might be interested to know that Santa brought me an Oculus Rift VR system for Christmas. I've been having a lot of fun these past few days rendering 3D panoramic versions of certain scenes and this morning I've added some to the gallery.

On the Oculus Rift they are viewable using the 360 Photos app (be aware you will need a Xbox controller to navigate the menus for some reason). Put the images in your "Pictures/OculusPhotos" directory.

12/22/17

Here's a "bonus" Christmas wallpaper for my faithful Members. Yes it is definitely a companion piece to "Spirit of the Season" (from the same "house" even). There's even a little "easter egg" callback to another of my early Christmas renders if you look closely :-)

Happy Holidays!!

12/15/17

Folks have been requesting an update to "Spirit of the Season" from 2002 for quite a few years now. Given that the last few years I've focused on lighted trees and cold outdoor scenes, I felt the time was right to create something warm for the holiday. After all, the best part of a snowy night is looking at it from inside a cozy warm house :-)

I may yet tinker a bit with this scene in the days ahead but probably nothing too major. If I do make major changes the original will go in the Pickle Jar otherwise I will just replace the render in the gallery. I hope you enjoy the update!!

12/02/17

Working with Lightwave (the background), Plant Factory (the foliage) and Vue (for the rendered environment) here. This one isn't technically a Christmas image but it has some of the hallmarks. Maybe in the Pickle Jar...

I originally intended to have the Stones serve as a portal to another world but I thought the light competed with the sky for focus. I may add a version with the portal open at a later date.

11/08/17

Shortly after posting my latest Halloween render I was asked by one of my Members if I had ever considered doing a wallpaper for Remembrance Day. We don't mark the holiday here in the US but after I did a little reading it certainly seemed like a worthy subject. Especially since quite a few of my Members come from Commonwealth nations.

The symbol of Remembrance Day is the common poppy. My rendering isn't too flashy or overt but I hope I did the subject justice.

I almost didn't have it ready in time for 10/31 because my original version had some volumetric ground fog that I had to remove in order to shorten the render time. Maybe I will be able to finish that version someday...

10/23/17

A few years ago we journeyed back to San Diego with the kids and visited Balboa Park one day. There happened to be a dahlia exhibition and contest going on and I was simply amazed at the diversity, beauty and complexity of this type of flower. I resolved to model one someday and here it is (with my own spin of course). One last flower before winter sets in for 2017. I modeled the blooms and set up the UVs in Plant Factory and finished the texturing in Lightwave.

10/15/17

This one is another Plant Factory experiment where I am attempting to vary the coloring of my leaves per individual tree. Most Vue plants have one leaf color (and thus look unconvincing in autumn renders) but here I've created a tree with five different color "zones" . The bottom leaves are purplish, red above that, then orange, then yellow and green at the tops. The Vue scene is a test of sorts to see how they look together in a "natural" setting.

Basically it's a doodle of sorts, but I thought it looked nice enough to share. Let me know what you think!